Route 443 Has Officially Opened to Palestinian Traffic

A couple of week back, I wrote a detailed analysis of the opening of Route 443 to Palestinian traffic.  The day has come and the highway is open again.  The highway, which links Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, was reportedly used by 55,000 Palestinians daily before violence broke out and at least seven Israelis were murdered while traveling on the highway.

Chinese news source Xinhua wrote a short article on the opening:

Israel opened on Friday a key highway across the West Bank to Palestinians, which had been closed off to Palestinian traffic in 2002 following a series of shooting attacks on Israeli vehicles.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) opened the Route 443 to Palestinian vehicles at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) Friday morning, an IDF spokesman told Xinhua.

While the Palestinians are now able to use the road to reach some of the villages alongside it, access to Ramallah will only be possible via small side routes because of new roadblock barring entry to the city, Israeli military resources was quoted by local daily Ha’aretz as saying.

Route 443 runs from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, linking several West Bank villages to Ramallah. Before the expressway’s partial closure in 2002, it was estimated that an average of 55,000 Palestinian villagers used it on a daily basis to reach Ramallah and other West Bank towns.

In the first two years of the second intifada, or uprising, starting in 2000, at least seven were killed by roadside attack, which began with rock throwing and Molotov cocktails aiming at Israeli vehicles and was soon followed by fatal shooting incidents.

Now only time will tell if the situation has calmed itself enough for Israelis to safely travel along Highway 443.  If you have not already, be sure to read the analysis on why this highway is important and the opening is such a big deal.